Because if we're going to try and stop the misuse of our favorite comics and their protagonists by the companies that write and publish them, we've got to see what both the printed and online comics news is doing wrong. This blog focuses on both the good and the bad, the newspaper media and the online websites. Unabashedly. Unapologetically. Scanning the media for what's being done right and what's being done wrong.

Wednesday, May 02, 2018

Why would SJWs seemingly attack Wertham despite agreeing with his viewpoint on sexuality?

I thought about this after reading this Comics Verse article about Fredric Wertham's career, which gives some insight into how he came to undermine the industry, and even notes the following about the old Comics Code Authority:

The Comic Code Authority came to life in September of 1954. Headed by New York Magistrate Charles F. Murphy, the Code became the new rulebook all comics found themselves abiding by. The new code could be described by one of its overarching rules; “good will always triumph over evil.” The new law of the land forbade anything “fun”; no horror, no gore, no sexuality. Any and all authority figures had to be morally right, and couldn’t be written as corrupt or wrong.

See, this is what I don't get, and I'm you don't either. If we're talking about heterosexuality here, this is where the SJWs of today actually agree with him, seeing how romance has been so badly watered down, if it's even there at all.

And then:

Some publications were able to persevere in their own way; Warren Publishing was able to skirt the rules by turning their publication into a magazine, able to publish what they pleased without the Code holding them back. They began to print their EERIE and CREEPY magazines, which survived up to the mid-1980s, as well as the creation of Vampirella, who has survived in the horror culture since.

Yes, but look how there were attempts in the past few years to dumb down Vampirella's sexuality, in effect making the modern social justice purge of whatever's considered inappropriate into a war on women's sexuality.

Wertham became the villain of many in the comics world. He was a moral knight, believing himself the harbinger of decency. He was known to be pompous in his words and hard-headed in his opinions. Wertham became a driving force behind a whole industry shakeup and is the cause of many lost jobs and comics. He became a stereotype; that of an old man, yelling at the progress of man, wondering why the world seemed cold and scary now.

That could easily describe many of today's SJWs, who're leading to the loss of jobs for talented artists, all for the sake of art that's deliberately dumbed down to mute all female sexuality as badly as possible.

To be fair, some of the comics were violent and gruesome in ways unimaginable today, with their depictions of rotting creatures oozing out of the grave and unshaven men with axes chopping off the heads of people (often screaming women).

But, to be equally fair, I never felt inspired to dig in old cemeteries or settle disputes with an axe, and I wondered why adults were talking as if I were a powder keg about to go off.

Personally, I'm wondering why Wertham never thought to approach that subject from an artistic perspective, which would've worked better.

Regarding the Comics Code, I once found some material gleaned from research by Les Daniels, which shows it contained the following about religion:

Religion: Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible.

Today, that's all changed selectively - attacks on Judeo-Christianity are permitted, but for Islam, it's forbidden. And then, what did the Code dictate about sexuality:

Costume:
-- Nudity in any form is prohibited, as is indecent or undue exposure.
-- Suggestive and salacious illustration or suggestive posture is unacceptable.
-- All characters shall be depicted in dress reasonably acceptable to society.
-- Females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities.

NOTE: It should be recognized that all prohibitions dealing with costume, dialogue, or artwork applies as specifically to the cover of a comic magazine as they do to the contents.

This is what the CCA originally decreed. Does the part about "realism" sound eerily familiar with what's taken hold today at Marvel? Back in the 50s, they must've realized early on their initial dictations were ridiculous, and within just a few years, they seemed to have backed off some, if not all, their original stipulations. Wonder Woman's costume, if any, thankfully survived the settings unscathed. Now, look what's happened as of recent at Marvel, and at least a few smaller publishers - you have cases of sexuality being laughably toned down with "breast reduction" tactics and women's bodies covered up out of moral panics and/or fauxtrage.

The sad reality is that censorious/deleterious minds never left the stables in comicdom. Joe Quesada's restrictions on smoking in comics, made just a few months after they'd abandoned the Comics Code in name only, are just one example of the lie that the entertainment industry was ever against censorship. Let's also remember Wertham was, much like the modern SJWs themselves, a leftist, which could explain why they never truly disapproved of him.

SJWs are operating inside Cultural Marxism space while Wertham was representing conservative Christian culture. They have incidental overlaps in that the object of the former is to minimize hetero sex on screen in order to advance lesbian values while the latter wants to protect the traditional family and limit sex inside that context. Of course, in Wertham's time, lesbian sex issues were a complete non factor.

Your are mixing up Wertham's own beliefs with the tenets of the Comics Code Authority. I don't think Wertham was against sex as such; he was against what he saw as covert hints of lesbianism and homosexuality in the comics (eg, Wonder Woman and Batman), called out a lot of what he saw as Freudian symbolism in the artwork, and condemned violence. Bear in mind that he was concerned with the effect of comics on kids, not with what kind of artwork and stories should be shown to and enjoyed by adults.

Marvel wants to sell comics to girls as well as boys. That usually means the woman characters have to be realistically proportioned and have some fashion sense for girls to be able to identify with them.

The difficulty in answering your main question, though, is that there is for some reason no central SJW authority with the power to set doctrine and tenets for the masses. SJW is just a pejorative word for liberals, who disagree with each other about things. Many of the books that favor diversity of characters and body types - like Saga, by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples, for example - are quite raunchy and explicit, and definitely sex positive while promoting family values!

A common liberal/sjw tactic is to suggest critics are just misinformed and that there is no central sjw authority, and therefore the activists who whine about things like Howard Chaykin depicting a transgender person getting beaten by bigots do not exist.

All it takes is a small group of people to complain and they have the effect of a central authority because everyone caves in to their demands in order not to appear intolerant and prejudiced.

The sexually explicit scenes in Saga seem to have involved gay sex. Sex-positive for sjws, applies only to homosexual sex. They frown on heterosexuality as being outdated or oppressive to women. This aversion towards heterosexuality and traditional or natural gender roles is why they have the main female protagonist, Alana, behave like a "alpha male, while Marko, the main male protagonist, takes on more feminine traits.

Wertham was against latent homosexuality, sjws are against traditional heterosexuality.

"SJW is just a pejorative word for liberals"Not, it's not. SJWS are what were the radical fringe of the liberalism in the 1960s--the ones who advocated for separatism based on group identityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separatist_feminism and terrorism against the state and individualshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)

Stop trying to downplay the fact that the hardliners have taken over the Left.I don't know who you're playing damage control for, but you are terrible at it.

Does this mean there are no heterosexual SJWS? The phrase did not exist in the 60s, except maybe as an acronym for single Jewish women, so it is hard to link it now to radicals of that time. Identity politics as such is something that emerged in the seventies. The way SJW seems to be used now is as an insult for people who advocate for the government helping citizens through social programs, but also for people who want to see more minority groups in their entertainment and less bigotry in speech, and as an objection to political correctness and the rhetoric of cultural appropriation. Mostly it just seems like an insult directed against a wide variety of people who don't have much in common with each other.

Saga contains lots of sexually explicit scenes involving male-female sexuality; the main theme of the story is the ties of marriage and child-rearing. Alana and Marko are both soldiers; Marko resolved to follow a form of pacifism at the beginning of the story but that changed as the story evolved.

That's like saying aren't any religious devout people who enjoy sex.Of course, there are but their beliefs led them to suppress it, find it sinful or what SJWS call..."problematic." SJWs will promote non conventional heterosexuality (masculine women, feminine men.Here is a SJW on on Twitter, representing the common view, among SJWs on heterosexuality."seems to me you’re going by Freudian standards, which were characterized in a societal context that favored heterosexuality as the norm as accurate. At this point, we have a society that favors gender fluid relationships as the standard, so this theory really would be outdated" Bhargav Chirravurihttps://twitter.com/179WestCMVDriveHe is not asking for more presentation in entertainment of sexual minorities but he is asking for an inverted role where sexual minorities are dominant in entertainment and are portrayed as normal.

"The phrase did not exist in the 60s," It didn't exist until very recently but the beliefs grew out of the fringe elements of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and 1970s.The ideas aren't new but their prominence is new, and that is because radical Leftists have worked their way into positions of influence in government, education and business since the 1960s and 1970s.

"an insult for people who advocate for the government helping citizens through social programs,"

Sjws are people who feel the current amounts of government assistance are INADEQUATE and think the government should make work optional, and subsidize the products of marginalized groups in the private sector.' on ideological grounds , despite a lack of demand or interest from the public.

"but also for people who want to see more minority groups in their entertainment"Here is a SJW on on Twitter, representing the common view, among SJWs on heterosexuality."seems to me you’re going by Freudian standards, which were characterized in a societal context that favored heterosexuality as the norm as accurate. At this point, we have a society that favors gender fluid relationships as the standard, so this theory really would be outdated" Bhargav Chirravurihttps://twitter.com/179WestCMVDriveHe is not asking for more presentation in entertainment of sexual minorities but he is asking for an inverted role where sexual minorities are dominant in entertainment and are portrayed as normal.What most sjws advocating for more representation want is the eliminationg of what is normal or common. If a country is predominantly Muslim, they would advocate for only non-Muslim people in entertainment, as new hires, etc because they inherently believe that the dominant beliefs and social norms are evil or got dominant through suppression of marginalized groups and "erasing" them. Black people have been "erased" from world history, "women" have been "erased" from history. "Disabled" people have been "erased" from history.

"and less bigotry in speech, and as an objection to political correctness "They want to ban the use of words like fag bitch,and nigger, they want to use it themselves and nobody else as a demonstration of power.

"and the rhetoric of cultural appropriation. Mostly it just seems like an insult directed against a wide variety of people who don't have much in common with each other."

You don't seem too enthusiastic about cultural appropriation there. It's just a belief that advocates for white straight people not to participate in "non-white" or non-straight cultures.

SJWs want to divide people into groups and keep them more divided they would have been without them. But in order to keep their coalition of people who don't have much in common with each other, they need an enemies. I have already suggested who the enemies are. It is not about representation and equality. It is about revenge for past injustice and power.

Problem with mike's analysis is that if social justice warrior means someone who is a gay and lesbian supremacist where sexual minorities are dominant and work is optional, that leaves out most of the usual enemies lists of SJWs. No Bernie, no Hillary, no SPLC, no marvel and DC editors. Just a few caricatures from last season's American Horror Story and a few very fringe people.

Cultural appropriation at its core is against taking the culture of another group and trivializing it by using it in a superficial or insulting way - no more Americans drinking green beer and playing Scottish tunes on St Patrick's day - but can extend to saying don't use anything from anyone else's culture ever. Of course, if white is defined as of European descent, that would mean white people have to abandon Christianity, the decimal system and half of American popular culture. Culture requires a free exchange of ideas.

You don't have to be a member of a non-dominant group to feel that they deserve better treatment than you in society. There are plenty of white people who hate white people so much they promote policies that would put whites at a disadvantage towards non-whites. One example is the call by white progressives for white men to shut up in all discussions about race because their opinion doesn't matter.

There are a lot of male feminists who repeat the stuff that radical feminists say about toxic masculinity.

There are feminists who support defend Islam because it's a culture different from that of Christian white men.

I'm sorry, a bunch of activists don't get to decide what people are allowed to do participate in.They can't ban Americans from participating in St Patrick' Day or non-Christians from exchanging Christmas gifts.

The only people who are bothered by "cultural appropriation" are the same people bothered by "microaggressions" and are constantly calling for "Safe spaces." because they can't deal with the real world. They are not well-adjusted people and I don't think they should be lecturing to everyone else on how to live.

About me

I'm Avi Green

From Jerusalem, Israel

I was born in Pennsylvania in 1974, and moved to Israel in 1983. I also enjoyed reading a lot of comics when I was young, the first being Fantastic Four. I maintain a strong belief in the public's right to knowledge and accuracy in facts. I like to think of myself as a conservative-style version of Clark Kent. I don't expect to be perfect at the job, but I do my best.